Preserves

[MrWiggle]

Anyone know where to buy a preserve kit, or the equipment required seperatley for jams and dried fruits mostly.

[Gippy]

I make jam using a saucepan and some glass jars. What exactly are you looking for?

[Macx]

Which fruits do you use? How do the local fruits taste in jam compare to the import stuff?

Thanks

[Gippy]

Which fruits do you use? How do the local fruits taste in jam compare to the import stuff?

Thanks

So far I have used mango, banana and mangosteen. All have been very nice, especially the mangosteen which made a very tasty, deep red coloured jam. None of these fruits have needed any added pectin and have set up nicely.

[MrWiggle]

Gippy, can you post how you make it.

When you say no pectin, is that same for all sweet fruits and how much sugar do you use. I am a little put off by the amount of sugar recommended to use in various websites. I like healthy as possible, which means as less sugar as possible.

Never doen this before and thought you needed to seal the lida somehow so they keep for a long time....as in 'preserve'

We will be doing,

Jams....Banana, Mango, Papaya, Pineapple.

Pickles and Chutneys from cucumbers and tomatoes.

Dried fruits & veg... papaya, mango, banana, pineapple, tomato.

Seem to recall my Mum using a bottling kit that had a ring thing that sealed the jars airtight. Also seem to remember someone using wax on the top to seal some things.

All info welcome.

[Gippy]

So far I have been making jam and chutneys with mangoes, bananas and mangosteens. Some fruits are low in pectin and may need some help to make a jam that sets nicely without hours of boiling. I found that those 3 fruits set very well without hours of boiling. I did boil the mangosteen for over an hour but that was because the colour was changing to a fantastic dark red the more I boiled it.

I have been making 'low' sugar jams using around 30-40% sugar to fruit compared with the standard 50-50. I then put a disc of wax paper over the top before sealing the jar with a normal lid. I am storing my jams in the fridge for extra safety. I think a jam at less than 50% sugar would go mouldy pretty quickly with the weather here without some extra processing in a canner.

If you can find the equipment I guess you could can jams and pickles using Mason or Ball jars. I have seen the jars for sale in True Value in Bangkok but no extra lids, you would probably need to order those from overseas.

I am quite happy just making the jams and chutneys and storing them in the fridge, they don't last very long and unlike in the UK there always seems to be a good supply of cheap fruit year round so I just make small batches quite often.